


this strange eventful history

by evocates



Series: all the men and women merely players [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Body Dysphoria, Bodyswap, Canon Era, Christianity, Consent Issues, Dark, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Consent, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Slavery, crammed into 7k words, please take caution, this fic has 80 percent of the dark and disturbing of a fever of the mad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 03:55:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9530483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/pseuds/evocates
Summary: Thomas was playing the role of a wife, taking liberties that were not his and fitted ill in his tanned hands. But his hands were paler now, and he had given his body in return, so surely it was a fair trade. Surely this was not theft.One morning, Thomas Jefferson woke up in Dolley Madison’s body, and she in his. The year was 1801.(A story known to no one. No ones with their own names and stories of their own.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dawittiest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawittiest/gifts).



> For fightbackfic, ironma_am requested “Jefferson/Madison with Jefferson and Dolley swapping bodies and maximum angst” from the person who wrote _a fever of the mad_. This is the result.
> 
>  **Warnings:** Slavery, period-typical misogyny and homophobia, discussion of Christianity, dubious consent and body dysphoria involving a cissexual man temporarily displaced in a woman’s body and having sex in said body, and very brief but significant description of a master raping his slave. 
> 
> Again, if anything discomfits or triggers you, or makes you feel things you don’t want to when enjoying fandom, please click the back button immediately. Jefferson, Madison, and Dolley are not good people here. 
> 
> As per the musical’s timeline, Jefferson is President, Madison is Secretary of State, Burr is Vice President, and Hamilton is dead. 
> 
> Title is taken from Shakespeare’s _As You Like It,_ Act II Scene VII. Part of the famous soliloquy that starts with “All the world’s a stage.”

_  
Mister Jefferson’s morning routines did not change with his move from Virginia to the capital. He woke before dawn to take the day’s temperatures, and then settled behind his desk to write letters. At seven, he would leave the house to ride around his estate, for exercise and to greet the people. Breakfast was served sharply at eight. By nine, he would have left for Congress._

_This morning, he was still in bed when I brought breakfast. The sun was cresting the skies when I called his name, but he still did not wake. Mister Jefferson did not fall sick: I recall him saying once that it was his privilege to maintain a healthy body when his wife, Miss Maria, and Mister Madison did not have such a thing._

_He opened his eyes finally, and stared at his hand for a long time. I set the breakfast tray down and fetched him a shaving mirror when he shouted. He screamed at the sight of himself._

_Mister Jefferson was not a man to yell. He was quiet, and gentle in the ways a master could be gentle. I did not ask. He did not explain._

_It was then that Mrs Madison arrived._

__***

Thomas looked down at his hand. Ink splotches splayed across the white, smooth expanse of his palm. The nails were carefully trimmed, and gleamed dully in the light that poured through the windows. He had been writing for only an hour, and the muscles already ached.

“Dolley?”

There was a book hidden in the desk drawer of the President’s private office; a book of blasphemy and faith entwined. On nights when his thoughts whirred too quickly for sleep, Thomas would continue his project to delineate the laws of the Bible from the insensible tales, cutting away all acts of supposed miracles. There were no such things; all acts and events could be explained by science, wrapped up neat and careful in familiar Latin.

“You have been distracted since morning.”

Madison’s footsteps were light despite his bulk. Thomas looked up, and did not flinch when a large, broad hand cupped his cheek. Madison had never been particularly affectionate with his wife in Thomas’s presence. Once, Thomas thought it was simply part of his usual reserve; Madison was not a man prone to passion.

But warmth spilled now from those dark eyes as Madison looked upon his wife. A river overflowing, threatening to drown and quench at the same time.

“There are still some last preparations to be made for the ball this evening,” Thomas said. He licked his lips, but it was his throat that was dry.

Sighing, Madison pulled away. He walked around Dolley’s desk to sit on the chair opposite. “To serve as the President’s hostess is a demanding,” he said. “A burden you had not asked for and need not shoulder.”

“It is my pleasure to do so.” Like a thief, Thomas scurried for words belonging to someone else. “I trust no one else with it.”

“Surely Patsy can be convinced to move here.”

Thomas shook his head. “Mrs Randolph has her own family, and her children are young.” He hesitantly reached out, patting Madison’s hand. A familiar gesture made strange by his now-small hand. “You should not worry so much about me, sir.”

Surprise flitted across Madison’s eyes. Thomas realised, far too late, that he did not how Dolley addressed her husband. He had never bothered to pay attention, and Dolley had not told him when he saw her this morning, dressed in his body.

He opened his mouth to apologise, but Madison stroked his cheek and cupped it again. Words, always so dear, fled from his grasp.

“You have always called me James when we are away from all eyes,” Madison murmured, delivering casual salvation to his wife like he always had Thomas. “Are you certain you’re alright?”

“There are still preparations to be made,” Thomas repeated. Slowly, he allowed himself to put his hand over Madison’s over his own cheek. He could not gather up the courage to squeeze. “You must forgive me. I shall reserve the whole of my attentions to you tomorrow.”

Dolley’s words, Dolley’s charms. Thomas was only a good actor amidst a crowd of strangers, but he must try.

Madison continued to frown. Thomas opened his mouth again, but Madison shook his head before the confession, the betrayal of the promise he had made to Dolley that he had staked his honour on, could escape.

“We must all play the roles we have chosen,” Madison said. There was a strange weight to his voice, and the light of his eyes dimmed.

Thomas watched as he stood up and came to him again. He tipped his head up, expecting another brief touch. But Madison brushed a kiss over his mouth instead.

“I must leave for Congress now.” He turned around. The lines of his body were so stark, his skin glimmering ebony in the morning sunlight. “Paul won’t be going with me, so call him if there is anything you require.”

Thomas’s lips were on fire. He hid his hands beneath the desk before he clenched them, an unladylike gesture. “I will call him,” he croaked out. “Do not fret over me, James.”

The name tasted sticky and sweet in Thomas’s mouth. An unearned intimacy he never had courage to ask for, but which had been freely, easily placed into Dolley’s hands.

Madison nodded. Thomas found himself on his feet, and they were moving.

“You must take your coat.” His voice echoed so strangely in his mouth. High and smooth, sweet like honey still clinging to the comb. Different from Dolley’s voice that he would hear with his own ears. “There might be strong winds, especially as the sun sets.”

Thomas did not meet the steady, considering gaze that rested on his now-thin shoulders, instead hurrying towards the door ahead of Madison. 

A friend might enquire after the health of a man, and recommend doctors and remedies. A wife’s duty was to take a more direct hand.

The line of thought was dangerous, like gunpowder carefully packed in wooden crates and stacked within a stone cellar. Thomas focused instead on not tripping over Dolley’s skirts. The material – silk, he recognised – was too loose and free-flowing for easy movement. His neck felt exposed without the weight of his cravat.

Paul was waiting in the doorway. Thomas instructed him to retrieve Madison’s coat, and took it from his hands when he returned. He helped Madison into it, forcing his fingers to not tremble when he slid them over thick arms and broad shoulders, smoothing out creases that weren’t there. The cloth was wool, well-woven, but he could feel sparks bursting into being still.

“There.” He swallowed. “You’ll be safe, now.”

Thomas was playing the role of a wife, taking liberties that were not his and fitted ill in his tanned hands. But his hands were paler now, and he had given his body in return, so surely it was a fair trade. Surely this was not theft. 

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said when Madison continued to stand there, so still and silent. He turned to head back to Dolley’s office.

Madison caught his wrist. His touch was light, but it felt like a vice. Thomas watched, breath stuttering, as he raised Dolley’s hand and pressed a kiss to the back.

Dry, and terribly soft. The warmth was an ember that sparked roaring flames along the lines of Thomas’s nerves.

“I look forward to it,” Madison said, and left.

Surely the coat’s wools had burrs had hooked onto Thomas’s eyes, for he could not look away from the sight of Madison’s back. Even when Madison disappeared into the confines of the waiting coach, even when Madison did not look back – at his wife, at Dolley – Thomas could not look away. His fingers were tangled in Dolley’s skirts; a futile attempt to control his own shaking.

“Madam?”

Paul’s accent resembled Madison’s: Virginian winds still caught between syllables. But it did not sound like home; did not carry the scent of growing cotton and tobacco and fresh-tilled earth. It was made of shadows hovering at the edges of a gentle sun.

Absentmindedly, Thomas patted him on the shoulder. He tugged his lips up into a smile.

“I seem to have misplaced my papers,” he said, thinking of his handwriting, so much unlike Dolley’s own, on her desk. “Do you recall where I put them?”

“Of course,” Paul said, and bowed.

Madison was long gone, sped away to where Thomas now could not follow. But he turned and looked, nonetheless.

Only the path remained, tiny grey stones kicked up by horses’ hooves dotting the expense of dirt baked red-brown underneath the sun’s light.

***

_Mrs Madison had many instructions for many things; she was a very meticulous woman. With good reason to be: I recall once that she said many diplomatic ties were built on the bedrock of the good humour her hosting had given the guests._

_She had been speaking to Mister Madison at the time, not me. She rarely spoke to any of us. She preferred to not see us._

_All of us within Mister Madison’s house had learned to accommodate Mrs Madison’s sensibilities, and fade against the walls in times when we were not required, and to make it obvious we were there when she called for us. In the years she was with Mister Madison, and even after, she did not touch us men even once._

_But her eyes were different on that day._

_Mister Madison liked to read, but his eyes were not as good as they were. Sometimes, at night when he could not sleep, he would ask me to read for him. His library was filled with books on science. Botany, biology, studies of those strange bones that were being found all over the country._

_I picked up Latin reading those books to him; he would always correct my pronunciation without needing to look at the page. But none of those books on science could explain why I saw someone else’s eyes in Mrs Madison’s face on that day._

_Though I have never served him directly, there are two habits of Mister Jefferson I know: one, he prefers that we leave the room during conversations. Two, he always looked at Mister Madison in a particular way._

_There are no thoughts I’d like to share, sir. Only my observations_.

***

In the morning, Dolley had told him imperiously: “The role of a hostess is for her work to remain invisible. A successful party must look effortless, Thomas. The hostess must behave as if she has done as little as any of the attending guests. Follow these instructions precisely, I beg you.” 

She had sat herself down on her desk, then, and written several pages in her looping, feminine writing that so ill-suited his large hands. 

Thomas had said, in return, “Plead that you have a migraine. Your husband will take over my duties with regards to Congress.” A failed ball meant much less than a misspoken word within the hallowed halls of democracy.

The British ambassador was here. Aaron Burr was beside him, trying to insinuate himself into the man’s company because he was the only person with some influence and who had not heard that Burr was a murderer. Thomas looked for Munroe to break up the tête-á-tête before he remembered. He turned away.

At least neither Burr nor Monroe were looking at him, or at Dolley, with suspicion. Dolley must have followed his instructions, then.

On the other side of the room, the President and his Secretary of State were speaking together, their heads bent towards each other. Madison’s hand was wrapped around the President’s arm, his mouth moving rapidly in his ear.

Was it because he was now seated behind a woman’s eyes that he thought that they seemed intimate? Or was it his knowledge that it was Madison’s wife that was now inhabiting the President’s body, and a couple together welded by God should be allowed free rein to each other’s bodies, no matter if it was temporarily, unwillingly borrowed?

Thomas did not know. 

There was little for him to do. There was little for women to do during these gatherings except to mingle, speak, gather information and hope that they, in their limited capacities for knowledge and understanding, knew what it was that their husbands were looking for. More skill was needed later, surely, to know exactly when their husbands had time to listen to them, and to be precise enough to give them exactly what they needed to hear. 

Still, he must play his role. There were liberties that were taken, and they must be repaid.

He was deep into conversation about fabrics of some texture or colour with Munroe’s wife when he felt someone step in next to him. Thomas turned around and was met with his own face, except that he never had that twist in the mouth or those lines around the eyes unless he saw them in the mirror, alone in his bedroom. 

“Mister President,” he murmured, and dipped his head in a woman’s greeting.

“Mrs Madison,” Dolley returned. She held out a hand – his own callused hand. “May I have the pleasure of escorting you into the ballroom?”

The conversation around them died instantaneously. Thomas blinked. Dolley looked back at him, head tilted to the side. Her eyes seated on his face rested upon him. Out of the corner of his vision, Thomas could see Britain’s ambassador bristling. His wife had her gloved hand over her mouth.

It was the first ambassadorial visit between the British and new-born America. Thomas smiled, and placed Dolley’s gloved hand – more silk, with lace trimmings; her personal maid Sukey picked it out two hours ago – into his own.

“No woman will refuse such a polite invitation,” he said.

“You did not agree for the sake of my position?” Dolley asked. She closed her fingers, and uncertainty flickered over her eyes again. Thomas shifted his borrowed body, sliding the hand that was both his and not his up the arm that was both his and not his until it looked right.

Until the President had the wife of the Secretary of the State by his arm. 

“To suggest that to the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence will be an insult,” Thomas said, and tried to insert Dolley’s usual loftiness into his tone. Judging by Dolley’s eyes, he failed miserably.

A misspoken word in Congress meant more than a faux pas in a ballroom, he reminded himself.

They started to walk. Dolley was a tall woman, almost to Madison’s height, and that made it easier for Thomas to turn his head and hiss, “What are you _doing_?”

“It was James’s suggestion,” Dolley replied out of the corner of her mouth. “I do not understand the details of it, but I do agree that it makes for a rather grand gesture. Doesn’t it?”

She was not quoting Madison verbatim, Thomas knew. Madison likely said that it was a symbolic gesture; a reminder to the British that they, as a nation of their own, had no obligation to pander to the whims and etiquettes of their previous oppressors.

It was a dangerous game to play, for high stakes and filled with uncertainty. It was a dangerous gamble, depending on the British’s current wars draining its coffers too much to launch an invasion of their new union. It was a story that could be easily, simply told when injected with nationalistic fervour.

Madison’s favourite. Thomas would indulge him this time, too. 

The band started to play the moment they stepped to the middle of the dance floor. They parted, and Thomas held out his hand. Dolley bowed to kiss it with another smile before she turned around and left in a purple tail-coated whirl. 

This state of matters could not last. Dolley, extravagant, could not play the role of the poor yeoman farmer that was so necessary for his people’s spirits. At least Thomas knew to keep the bright colours for Cabinet meetings, and dress dully when he had to meet the public.

He pushed away the thoughts of how this could have happened. There were no answers, at this time, and he could not afford to be distracted. Not with the chore ahead.

Thomas had his own charm, a mask he had built over a long time, crafted carefully with his own hands until he knew every single curve and groove. Dolley’s was different – a woman’s role was different. He was thankful when the bell rang for dinner to be served, and slipped easily, too easily, into Madison’s side as Dolley’s husband picked up the hand that was both hers and Thomas’s and rested it on his elbow.

“Women surely wear gloves to prevent the spit of undesirable men to stain their skin,” Thomas said. He stifled his grin into a smile when Madison chuckled. 

The sound rumbled through the broad body pressed close to Thomas’s, and his breath hitched. He kept the smile on.

“My apologies for the terrible ordeal to which my position has subjected you,” Madison murmured, voice dry. “It was surely difficult for you to withstand everyone waiting upon and praising you.”

Dolley would huff at this moment, perhaps, like Martha, like his Patty— Thomas pushed that thought away, too, and blew out a sharp breath. Madison laughed, and he placed a hand on top of Thomas’s, on top of Dolley’s.

The warm, solid weight made Thomas’s head spin. Madison’s hand felt like it belonged like this, on top of his own.

He nearly stumbled, and only managed to catch himself at the last moment.

There was a book hidden in the desk drawer of the President’s private office; a book of blasphemy and faith entwined. Weeks ago, he had taken from the Book of Leviticus, and carefully copied out: _If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them._

Two decades ago, when reviewing the laws of Virginia, he had offered dismemberment as an alternative to death as the penalty for sodomy. That law was struck down by the other members of the Virginian Congress because it was too lenient.

The hand was Dolley’s, he reminded himself. Thomas was playing the role of Madison’s wife, inhabiting her body without willingness.

This was not a liberty taken. This was a duty.

His fingers closed around Madison’s arm. If he concentrated, he could feel the blood rushing beneath the skin. A beat so much steadier than his own heart.

***  
_  
This should not be my story to tell, but Burwell’s. But Burwell has been dead for long years, and he has told this to me._

_That night, Mister Jefferson asked for Burwell’s help to undress him. Burwell told me – please understand, sir, he was very confused; we are usually not so loose with our tongues – that Mister Jefferson seemed uncertain about his own clothing. Like he had been in the morning, when he asked Burwell to dress him. Burwell knew, and so do I, that Mister Jefferson had never asked that before._

_I’m sorry if that is not what you wanted, sir. Speaking on a dead man’s behalf is not a good thing. But this part is now mine, so it should be better._

_Mister Jefferson always said that a man incapable of dressing himself was a man who should not have the privilege of anyone around him to help him do so. Once, I heard Mister Madison ask him: what if that man is old? Mister Jefferson had only laughed, then. Maybe he answered Mister Madison properly later, but he did not in front of me._

_Mister Jefferson said very little in front of us. He always noticed us when we were present. Those who didn’t work in the house said that we had a very good life, because most of the time we didn’t have to wait on him directly. I can see why they think that way, and I don’t blame them, sir, but Mister Jefferson always expected us to know when he needed us. We must learn to read the air when we were in his house. We must learn to understand what exactly it was he needed, because his words were reserved for much more important people than us._

_That night, I thought I knew what he needed. Mister Jefferson liked parties, but they tired him out. I knew I must go to his rooms, and I prepared myself beforehand. I used the most water amongst all of us, because Mister Jefferson liked me clean._

_I went to his study. I waited there, at the doorway, until he noticed me. He told me to go, but by then, I realised that his face had remained the same, but it was different all the same._

_Mrs Madison always forgot that we were there. Mrs Madison forgot a lot of things. It was her way._

__***

“The ninth commandment said, ‘Thou shalt not lie.’ Yet we have told many of them tonight.”

Madison was in his sitting room, stripped to stockings, breeches and shirtsleeves. The stark white of cotton gleamed against his dark, dark skin in the candlelight.

 _Only the obscuring the truths, in some cases_ , the President would have told the Secretary of State. _The Lord will know it to be necessary, for the safety of our country,_ he would have continued, trying to reassure. 

But Thomas was not the President at the moment; the President had returned to his own residence, pleading exhaustion from a long-standing migraine. Right now, Thomas was playacting Madison’s wife. Deeper beneath was nothing but a slow, gnawing knot in his stomach that Madison shared these insecurities with Dolley as well.

“Do you think all sins are equal in the eyes of God?”

 _The Bible tells us the ideal of righteousness, of how things should be_. The words hovered on the tip of his tongue. _It is up to us men to judge the sin and worth both_.

Dolley would not have said that. It would require thinking too deep than she was capable of.

Thomas headed over to Madison instead. He dropped to one knee in front of the armchair where he was seated, and looked into his eyes. He did not take his hand, no matter how much he wished to do so.

“It is late,” he murmured. "Surely we have done too much today to to be plagued further by such grave worries."

Madison’s eyes rested on him for long moments. Thomas held his gaze, and hoped that he was looking at Madison as Dolley would. He did not want this pretence, and wished to spill all to him. He wished to bend his head and apologise, for he had broken the commandment of God, and lied.

No, his guilt had nothing to do with God at all. Only with the soft touch of Madison’s hand, on his cheek.

A memory surfaced: Dolley’s eyes on his own face, rough hands clutching his too-small, too-smooth ones so tight. _Don’t tell him_ , Dolley had said, a fierce whisper made of flames that swallowed forests and rushing rivers that crushed stones. _Promise me that you will do your best to act like me, and don’t tell him_.

Thomas did not ask for her reasons. He thought He already knew them, he was sure.

“I do feel tired, but my body owns energy in excess at the moment,” Madison said. “By tomorrow, it will be gone.” 

His hand slipped into Dolley’s thick hair, tugging away the ribbon that kept the strands neatly tied into a bun. Thomas did not blink as he felt heavy silk brushing over bare shoulders.

“Will you let me make the most use of it?”

This was a code, Thomas realised. One so similar to that they used to communicate in their letters, back during those days when they did not live a few minutes’ walk away from each other. Before the Presidency, when the Declaration still hovered on the precipice of being the ramblings of a mad man.

He did not know this code. Thomas closed his eyes, and turned his head. He pressed his lips against Madison’s pulse, feeling it thrum, heating the air in his mouth. He was swallowing flame, now.

Madison tipped his head up. Thomas had the briefest glimpse of his eyes – full-dark, the colour of the lake on Monticello’s grounds during moonless nights – before Madison breathed, “Dolley,” and kissed his wife. 

Realisation slammed into Thomas. A physical blow that had him gasping, lips parting, and Madison cupped his cheek and pressed his thumb deep into the hollow of Thomas’s jaw. He took Thomas’s mouth like a husband took his wife, writing his claim on the inside with a sweeping tongue, driving the nails down to engrave it on Thomas’s bones with wet, obscene sounds. 

It was an invasion. Dolley, bright and vivacious, would have pushed back. Her hands on Madison’s shoulders, perhaps, or clenched around his curls. Her tongue a weapon like his. Perhaps, perhaps; Thomas never knew. This was knowledge he had never allowed himself to touch. Thousands of books in his library, so many from an ocean away, and here words and sensations crafted onto skin just within his reach but he had never dared to even acknowledge exist.

Thomas was playing the role of a wife, taking liberties that were not his, and he.

 _He_.

A shudder wreaked through his frame. Madison pulled back. Spit trailed between them, filth shimmering like gems when it caught the candlelight. Thomas’s chest heaved.

“Will you let me?” Madison asked.

Dolley holding his hands, her eyes pleading. His honour on the line. The question he did not ask her, the question he had never thought to ask: _why_? And now…

The sixth commandment said, _Thou shalt not lie_. In the Book of Leviticus, it was wrriten, _Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is an abomination._

 __But he was not lying. But he was not a man. If asked, Madison would be having his wife, an act sanctified and approved of by God. He would not be making Madison into Onan, spilling his seed upon dry, untilled soil.

Thomas traced the side of Madison’s eyes with a tremulous hand. There were lines there. He did not know if they had always been there: before his return from Paris, he had never allowed himself to look so closely. And letters could not mark the changes a face went through as the years went by.

“Alright,” he breathed.

He would be haunted by this, Thomas knew. His rationalisations would fail him eventually.

But Madison was smiling. He stood with his hand around Thomas’s wrist. When Thomas tipped his head up, Madison bent again, sweeping his arm beneath Thomas’s knees. He lifted his wife into his arms and took her to the bedroom, like he surely had on his wedding night.

There had been ghosts hovering over Thomas’s shoulders for decades; ghosts bursting full-formed from the ether of his conflicting thoughts and desires, his ideals and his selfishness. Thomas was a fool by choice, by effort, blinding himself for the sake of having solid ground beneath his feet. And there’s no effort strong enough to allow him to believe that this sudden change was an act of God, just to make this possible. 

Permissible. 

It could only be so for Madison. Thomas, with knowledge in indecipherable code that he somehow understood carved beneath his skin, was already lost. Perhaps he had been lost long ago, on that first day he had walked through the streets of Paris with words hovering on the corners of his lips that he could not write down; when he walked into a bookstore and looked for bound papers not for himself, but for a man who had invaded his thoughts far sooner than he had his mouth.

The sheets were made of cotton, cool to the touch. They rustled soft against the silk of Dolley’s dress, rubbing the soft shift inside against Thomas’s skin. Madison loomed over him, his body large and breath already heavy.

Long ago, his Patty always hated this part. Virginian-born and bred, she had seen the nightly habits of husband and wife as nothing but a chore for the sake of the children she wanted and the son Thomas had desired and had never told her about.

But perhaps Dolley, a northern woman, was different. Perhaps she gasped like this, too, as Madison undid her laces and slipped her dress away. Perhaps she arched in the same way, legs spreading, her hands turning greedy as she reached out for her husband. 

_Act like me,_ Dolley had pleaded to him. Thomas did not know how he could craft a mask that he did not even know the shape of. He could only hope, blindly, that his face was not bared at the moment.

His body – Dolley’s body – bared to Madison’s sight, Thomas closed his eyes, parting his lips. Their tongues slid together, this time, wet and slick. Madison tasted of tea, tannins lingering on his palate sweeping across Thomas’s tongue. His hands were chilly as they stroked down his back – Dolley’s back – fingertips pressing light over the knobs of the spine.

“James,” Thomas breathed.

Madison didn’t say a word. He pulled away, cocking his head to the side. Thomas did not know this code but he knew, nonetheless, the next sequence. He shook as he unbuttoned Madison’s shirt and breeches, biting the inside of his cheek as his heart roared futilely in his chest for him to stop.

In the eyes of the Lord, all sins were equal, and it was up to Man to judge their severity. All of the commandments Thomas had flouted were already carved deep along the lines of his nerves, and his hypocrisies writ upon the skin for the candlelight to burn during the nights he did not spend alone in his rooms, back in his own residence. This fire burning inside his bones was unfamiliar, but Thomas was used to flames.

“Lie down,” Madison murmured. His hand was nearly large enough to span the width of Dolley’s chest. The web between his thumb and first finger curled around his small breast. His nail flicking over the nipple.

Thomas fell backwards. In his mind, the bed could not catch him. In his mind, he was already sinking. Water surrounding him, drowning, pooling between his legs, his thighs now slick against each other as cloth peeled off Madison’s skin. Madison, broad-shouldered and strong-built because of his doctor’s unorthodox methods of forcing him to ride and exercise. Madison, who carried on with it even after the sicknesses still came, because, he had told Thomas, it allowed his mind to find some peace.

Madison, whose palms were terribly warm as they curved around Thomas’s hips, Dolley’s lips. His lips soft and teeth sharp as he kissed Thomas again, their exhales mingling in his throat.

“May I?”

Thomas stared.

Behind his eyes: Patty lying on the sheets, her skin golden-dark against the pale cotton. Patty’s wide eyes and the hint of fear that never went away, no matter how gently Thomas touched her. Patty’s skin and body, weak and fragile, so much that Thomas had his nails trimmed regularly so he wouldn’t catch on the cracks and shatter her entirely. Patty who had curled her fingers around his elbow and taken him away from his desk to her bed, clearly desiring.

Not once in their years of marriage had Thomas ever thought to ask. Yet now Madison was.

“You must think it strange for me to ask,” Madison said. There was a line of fire against Thomas’s thigh, thick and hot. “But it seems appropriate, tonight.” The back of his fingers brushed Thomas’s cheek.

The question he had not asked Dolley: _why_? He swallowed it back again, and closed his eyes. He nodded.

Madison lifted up Dolley’s hips- no, they were his now. They could only be his. Thomas curled forward to bury his face into a broad shoulder. The body’s alien reflexes, surely. Madison’s fingers curled between his legs. A thumb brushed over a spot, not even inside, and Thomas found a sob coiling inside his throat.

“Breathe,” Madison murmured into his ear. “Let me take care of you, my dear.”

The endearment wrenched the sob out before Thomas could stop it. Thomas’s head dropped backwards, fingers clawing on Madison’s back as he found himself invaded. Spread open and speared wide, his body a slick, wet sheathe around- around…

His body knew its role, clenching down, but his mind was screaming. _Abomination, dismemberment_. His throat, caught in between, fluttered and squeezed around James’s name. 

“My dearest love,” Madison breathed. His hand closed around Thomas’s shoulder, pushing him down to the bed. His hips shifted and his _cock_ twisted inside Thomas, the tip pressing against something inside that shoved another cry out of his tortured throat.

Madison’s hand splayed upon his chest. His fingers squeezed, flicked over the nipples. Lightning gathering beneath Thomas’s skin. Madison’s mouth over his, one hand moving down to clutch Thomas’s hip.

He started to move, and Thomas suddenly understand why Patty always looked so afraid. There was thousands of books inside his library and six languages hovering on the tip of his tongue, and yet he could not find the words to describe this. An assault with every thrust, and yet dearly welcomed by the body that clenched and drew Madison’s cock inside again with every pull backwards.

Fingers over his mouth. Thomas parted his lips, and Madison’s fingers shoved inside. Pressed against his teeth, the tips brushing against the back of his throat as Madison moved even faster. Thomas had become a city under siege, Troy with its walls falling as the Greeks overran its streets and burned down its houses, ripping it apart from the inside until nothing was left but half-remembered ashes of glory.

A face hovered behind his eyes: like his Patty, but with sorrowful eyes and downturned lips. 

Sally. Sally with tears in her eyes, turning familiar brown from summer-rich fields to autumn muck. Sally with her hands clenched around the sheets. Sally, the first time, voice too loud and face so small beneath his hand over her mouth.

Before he could chase the thought, before he could capture it, Madison groaned above him. His hips slammed into Thomas’s, reaching deeper than he did before. Thomas gripped the sheets as he arched at the line of fire that shot into him, razing all that was within. His body was pushed back down, his air cut off by chilled skin against his lips.

The invasion left. Thomas’s felt his own arm, sweaty, over his face. He tried to breathe. His legs trembled and tried to shift, but he couldn’t move them because Madison had his fingers inside him. Curled, digging, his thumb against his spot above. Wet slaps in tandem with his racing heart, with the lightning gathering and spiralling within his spine, pulling him down, down, into the heart of the storm.

His tongue twisted around a word, a plea, but all that escaped was a choked-off “ _James_!” as the world disappeared beneath fire and ash. Thick enough to drown and suffocate.

When the world cleared enough for him to see, there was sour salt in his nose. Thomas blinked his eyes open. Madison above him, his fingers glimmering wet underneath the candlelight, held above Thomas’s lips.

“It seems appropriate tonight,” he said. He was not smiling, and there were shadows beneath his eyes.

Thomas saw Menelaus, standing on a burning street and staring at his traitorous wife who had cost him so much dignity, and wanting nothing more than to take her into his arms again. He heard the wails of Andromache, husband’s corpse desecrated and toddler son impaled, as chains were clapped upon her neck and wrists. He smelled Onan’s sweat and the thicker salt of his white seed spilled upon the dry, untilled field. 

In Madison’s eyes, he saw, and heard, and smelled. And he understood.

Pushing himself up, he took Madison’s fingers into his mouth. He licked the fingers clean. He spread his legs further when Madison pushed his fingers back inside, gathering his own seed and feeding it to Thomas, drop by painstaking drop. 

When there was nothing left, Madison smeared his fingers over Thomas’s jaw. One side, then the other, following the lines of where his beard would be, in the body that was his own.

They washed, and laid down next to each other. They did not speak. 

***  
_  
This is not my story to tell. However, sir, I understand that you could not find Sukey. I do not blame you: none of us have heard a word about her, either. Not since she displeased Mrs Madison._

_Sukey told me that, on the morning of that particular party, Mrs Madison did not call for her. Mrs Madison rarely dressed or did her hair herself, but she did so that morning, and it was only hours later that Sukey saw her. Mrs Madison had her hair in a simple braid, then, and she was wearing one of her older dresses. She had told Sukey, without prompting, that she had been by Mister Jefferson’s residence._

_If you know any of Mrs Madison’s habits, sir, you will know why Sukey came to me with this. Even though Mister Jefferson is a dear friend of hers, Mrs Madison had never allowed the man to see her in anything but her absolute finest. An accomplished man, Mrs Madison had always said, deserved nothing but her best efforts. When Mister Jefferson visited on early mornings, she would not even leave her room, instead asking me to wake Sukey up so she could ready herself._

_The morning following the party, Mrs Madison broke with her usual habit again. She rose with Mister Madison an hour after dawn instead of later like she usually did, and sent all of us into a bit of a scramble to finish cleaning up. But aside from scolding Sukey to not come to her the moment she woke, she did not seem to notice._

_That had always been Mrs Madison’s way. It was her way again, on that morning and all mornings afterwards. Nothing else remarkable happened._  
  
***

Ink splotches over the back of his hands, the spots where the slick darkness smeared melding into his tanned skin. Thomas flexed his fingers, and looked up again.

Dolley sat opposite him on the plush chair in the President’s official office. Legs crossed and hands resting on her lap, she levered at him an expectant look.

“Well?”

The Trojans would prefer the tales of their defeat to be hidden to spare themselves the shame of their defeat being known. Thomas picked up his quill.

“Nothing happened beyond what you have seen,” he told her. He did not try to meet her eyes, instead picking up his quill again. He would bury the tales of defeat within the swampy depths of history to spare the sieged Trojans the shame. “We headed back, and went to bed.” 

Heaving a sigh, Dolley shook her head. She had her hair piled up high and wrapped into a turban today, a few strands falling into her eyes. She brushed them away impatiently. “Did the two of you exchange any words that I should know about?”

Dipping the quills tip into the ink pot, Thomas gave her a small smile. “I pleaded tiredness and went to bed,” he said. “It was a good enough excuse.”

“Sometimes I do get tired after parties,” Dolley said. “Other times…” she grinned out of the corner of her mouth, and then laughed. She stood. “Thank God that is over.” 

A fool would believe God had engineered the incident to allow for an unearned blessing. Thomas knew that it had been a test, and one both he and Madison had failed utterly.

“Well, then. I will keep you from your work no further, Mister President.”

There were letters for him to write and bills that must be read, but Thomas still heard himself say, “Why?”

“What?”

“Why didn’t you want him to know?” he lifted his head to look Dolley in the eye. 

Dolley blinked at him. She was half-turned towards the door, her small, pale hand resting on top of the armchair.

“Like you, my husband is a rational man who holds tightly to the tenets of science.” Her every word was a barb as sharp as the canines she flashed him from the corners of her mouth. “To know that such a thing was possible would have gnawed at him endlessly, and he has enough worries already.”

Thomas paused. He placed the quill back onto its stand. “You do not believe that I would do the same thing?”

She laughed. “Unlike my husband, Mister President, you have mastered the art of forgetting.” 

Madison was no mask-crafter, Thomas knew. He simply portioned himself, piece by reserved piece, to those he deemed worthy. When he looked into the mirror, he would still see the whole of himself.

Thomas did not have to look at her to know the triumph writ on her lips. He lifted his eyes nonetheless. “Not forgetting,” he said, voice soft.

Inclining her head, her smile widened. “As you say, sir,” she murmured.

He watched her leave. The hem of her damask dress whirled and half-caught against the door’s edge before it closed. Reaching for his quill, he paused, hand hovering in the air.

The ink had dripped down to stain the blotting paper beneath black. 

***

_No, sir, I do not remember that day clearly because Mister Jefferson broke from his habits, then. There had been many moments like that. Mister Jefferson had his moods._

_I remember because he did not call me into his rooms afterwards. Not for a year._

_That is the only reason._

**Author's Note:**

> When I first started plotting this fic, I knew it has to be in canon era because modern AU would just make the premise funny, and maximum angst was called for. Dilemma, then: I refuse to erase slavery, but I don’t want the presence of the slaves to be token either. Hence the sections in italics. It’s the least I can do when Dolley’s characterisation, and Paul’s, is taken almost wholesale from _A Slave in the White House_ , written by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor and Paul Jennings himself. The use of first-person for Sally and Paul, and third-person for Jefferson, is entirely deliberate. I’d like to think that they add a great deal to the fic. What they add is entirely up to your interpretation.
> 
> Regarding history, I have taken so much from _A Slave in the White House_ , _The Hemingses of Moticello,_ and others in my pile of history books about the Jeffersons and the Madisons into my headcanon that I am no longer sure whether the facts and habits I’ve written in are my imagination or actual history anymore. But Jefferson’s personal Bible with only the laws was real; Sally, Paul, Sukey, and Burwell were all people who existed and were enslaved by either Jefferson or Madison; Patty was really Martha Jefferson’s nickname; Dolley and Madison really were very playful and flirtatious with each other; and the misogyny, homophobia, and attitude towards slaves are all not just period-typical, but character-typical in the cases of Jefferson, Madison, and Dolley. 
> 
> In this fic, Dolley Madison is played by [Faye Wong](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/celebrity/img/attachement/jpg/site1/20141104/001ec979096315c276ee43.jpg). 
> 
> Dear ironma_am, you asked for crack taken seriously. I really hope that this isn’t too serious and that you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for the donation made.


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